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AS A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF WAL-MART, I was aware that my store had a “loss-prevention team” - which basically consisted of two obvious plain-clothed, unarmed “security officers” that walked around the store watching people shop, trying to catch shop-lifters.  These guys were likely moonlighting at Wal-Mart on their days off from bouncer-duty at the bar.  Nevertheless, occasionally they would catch someone stealing, and that’s where it all gets fuzzy.  Let me make it perfectly clear, these guys ARE NOT law enforcement officials so the level of actual ‘enforcement’ they were legally allowed to use always seemed unclear.  From what I understood, they were not allowed to physically intervene in a theft situation, just ‘escort’ them to the back, and call the police. They were not allowed to slam you face-first onto the ground.

Apparently a loss-prevention officer for a Wal-Mart in Spartanburg, S.C. never got that memo. WYFF-TV in South Carolina reports that a video-survellience camera captured footage of loss prevention officer, Joseph Gregorie bear-hug a 58-year-old woman, he suspected of shop-lifting, and slam her face-first into the ground.  Talk about your all-time, total losses of composure.  The woman sustained minor facial injuries and was taken to an area hospital.  Wal-Mart was vague when talking to WSNA-TV in South Carolina about their loss-prevention protocol:

“...the spokesperson said their employees do follow certain ‘asset protection’ protocols, but she said she could not go into details about those protocols because of this investigation.”

UPDATE: if you didn’t already see it, check out the comment below from loyal reader Rob. He reports seeing a similar situation at a store where he worked.

Wal-Mart Employee Charged With Assaulting Shopper [WSNA-TV (S.C.)]

A Wal-Mart employee faces charges after police say he slammed a woman suspected of shoplifting face-first into the ground.

It happened late Tuesday night at the Dorman Centre Wal-Mart in Spartanburg. According to police reports, Joseph Gregorie, the store’s loss prevention officer, saw a 58-year old Greer woman concealing items in a bag. Gregorie says when he confronted her, the woman dropped the bag and tried to run away. The woman, Deborah Blackwell, tells police that Gregorie “bear hugged” her and slammed her face-first into the ground. She suffered a large contusion on her left eye and an injured hand and had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Gregorie told police that he grabbed Blackwell and she lost her balance and they both fell. But after reviewing surveillance video, the investigating officer said it shows Gregorie “throwing her to the ground”. He took the evidence to a judge who signed arrest warrants for both Gregorie and Blackwell.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Wal-Mart Watch’s new video, “Wal-Mart saves money, the Walton family lives better,” shows the real life implications of Wal-Mart’s low-wage business model. While the average full-time hourly Wal-Mart worker makes $19,200 a year, the Walton family’s net worth rose to over $100 billion during the past year.

As average American families have conversations around their kitchen tables just like the Wal-Mart employee and his family in this video, the Walton family doesn’t have a care in the world.  Because the Walton family and Wal-Mart choose to pay low wages to the company’s workers, families across the country - just like this one - are struggling to stay in their homes, pay their bills, pay their medical expenses and take care of their families. 

So, while Wal-Mart saves money on the backs of its employees, the Walton family lives better – much better.  It’s no wonder that Wal-Mart is so opposed to any tool such as the Employee Free Choice Act, which could actually make it easier for employees to stand up to Wal-Mart and demand better wages and benefits. No, Wal-Mart executives and the Walton family want to keep on living better themselves - and it’s just too bad for the 1.4 million U.S. employees.

Check out the new video, and let us know what you think. 

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Wal-Mart Watch is releasing a new video today to accompany our new report, “Reasonable Accommodation – Denied,” which exposes Wal-Mart’s deliberate pattern of discrimination against employees with disabilities.

After working at Wal-Mart for nine years with a reasonable accommodation for her disability, Wal-Mart suddenly denied Jane’s accommodation.  They required her to take a leave of absence and have yet to reinstate her.  She has been essentially fired.  This is her story.

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“Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart” premiers on Halloween, 2008, and the trailer is already online. Sign up at http://waldemartwatch.com for an invitation-only sneak preview of the film on October 30th, or click here to download the webready poster (381 K) to send to friends.

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Go to www.waldemartwatch.com to sign up for an invitation-only sneak preview of “Harry Potter and the Prisoners of Waldemart” on October 30th. Look for the full release on October 31st, 2008, or watch the original.

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We’ve been following a story in recent weeks about how Wal-Mart wants to build a 141,000-square-foot supercenter on the edge of Wilderness Battlefield National Park in central Virginia. The plan came under heavy opposition in July by several historical/environmental/civil war preservation groups, collectively known as the Wilderness Battlefield Coalition, when they drafted a letter to Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott.  The letter expresses the deep concern many feel over the proposed store: 

This Super Wal-Mart would be built within one-quarter mile of the National Park and would pave the way for desecration of the Wilderness with unnecessary commercial growth. Such a large-scale development is inappropriate next to a National Park.

The Civil War Preservation Trust has launched an entire website to spread the word and garner support against the plan. They were quoted this week in an article from NBC-29:

According to Brent Lawrenz of the Civil War Preservation Trust, “It’s going to put a tremendous pressure on Route 20 which is 2 lanes and they’re proposing to re-route part of it through key battleground area.”

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Dan Rather is back on Wal-Mart. 

Back in April, Dan Rather’s new show Dan Rather Reports did a full episode on the dubious workings of Wal-Mart’s PAC. This time, he takes a long look at the phenomenon of exploding gas cans, and interviews several boys that were very badly burned and disfigured.

If you haven’t heard the story before, Wal-Mart and its supplier Blitz USA have been repeatedly accused of selling gas cans that can explode if held near an open flame, shooting flaming gasoline in every direction. Experts say that a simple flame arrestor would make every can safe, and could be installed by the manufacturers for under $1 - and possibly as little as a few pennies. Wal-Mart and Blitz have of course denied any responsibility for the accidents, refused to take any action to make the cans safer, and actually deny that the cans can explode at all.

But the footage actually includes a clip of an exec on stage at a Manager’s meeting shamelessly joking about gas cans exploding.  And another unbelievable SNL-style fake-ad skit where a supposed Wal-Mart worker jokes about starting fires with gasoline from gas cans.

The clip above is the bulk of the segment on Wal-Mart, although part 6 goes on to tell us that Wal-Mart and Blitz gas cans are actually countersuing one of the families whose son was badly burned in a gas can explosion.

Every day, something new and horrifying from Wal-Mart.

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The Daily Show’s Rob Riggle, on assignment in Beijing, takes a trip to one of the country’s “home-grown success stories,” Wal-Mart. 

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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Ann Zimmerman, Chief Executive of Wal-Mart Stores USA Eduardo Castro-Wright discusses the company’s domestic retail strategy. Castro-Wright seems confident that the economy’s recent down turn has not been responsible for Wal-Mart’s sales boost: “I wouldn’t say a significant part of the current results is related to the economic environment. The changes in merchandising, marketing and improved service in the stores ... have vastly improved the shopping experience, and that will continue to drive sales after the economy rebounds.” This goes contrary to nearly every financial analyst’s views on the company’s current position, but you keep dreamin, Wal-Mart!

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Paris Hilton: hotel heiress...reality TV star...President?

Despite having not yet announced her campaign, Hilton was recently placed in a John McCain ad (along with Britney Spears) alongside Senator Barack Obama, most likely in an attempt to make her appear ultra-liberal and quite unpresidential. (Some would argue the advertisement was really an attempt to make Obama look like a self-important celebrity, but I doubt the McCain camp would go there.)

Anyway, Hilton, shown here on what is no doubt an excruciatingly important call with a foreign dignitary (and looking fabulous in a Diane von Furstenberg dress), has fought back, announcing her candidacy and her intent to run against a certain ”wrinkly white-haired guy.” And with that, we can be left to ponder what would become of us under President Hilton, as Sean Leviashvili at TheStreet.com has:

ECONOMIC POLICY:
What about universal healthcare? And what about universal shopping sprees? According to a recent CNN poll, 48% of Americans are most concerned about the economy and the troubled job market. And with big name-companies such as Wal-Mart missing their earnings expectations recently, the U.S. might need someone who actually knows what Wal-Mart sells. Paris once asked what Wal-Mart (WMT) was on national TV ("What’s Wal-Mart? Do they sell, like wall stuff?"), let’s hope she’s done some research.

Research schmesearch...I hope once she’s President, Hilton will finally find her way to Wal-Mart to fill all of her wall-related needs.

Potential Policies if Paris Hilton Becomes President [TheStreet.com]

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Managers could be influencing employees to vote Republican, with Julian Epstein, Democratic strategist and CNBC’s Larry Kudlow. [CNBC]

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“I think it is going to backfire. Not only will it backfire politically in the way you state but what’s so sort of delicious about the whole thing is that it shows exactly why the Employee Free Choice Act is so needed. Because the mechanisms of intimidation an employer has over an employee are SO powerful, that running a union election in that context has become incredibly difficult, almost impossible. When your employer can have a mandatory meeting and sit you down in a room for hours on end showing you anti-union propaganda, or telling you who they think you should vote for, and you have to listen to them because you can’t walk out of that room and not get fired, those are exactly the conditions that create a system in which it’s harder and harder for workers to unionize and have a voice in the workplace and those are precisely the conditions the Employee Free Choice Act is designed to remedy. So I think the most ironic part of all this is that they’ve shown exactly why the law that they’re fighting is so necessary.” - Christopher Hayes, Washington Editor for The Nation

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What is Wal-Mart really trying to say with its new ad? We gave voice to some of Wal-Mart’s unspoken messages.

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A fascinating 52-minute documentary about the rise and fall of suburbia and the suburban way of life: car-bound, oil-dependent and ever-consuming. It’s a model that Wal-Mart depends on, but as this documentary explains, it’s a model that probably won’t last another 50 years. [Via]

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Wall-E, the new Pixar movie about romance between two robots hundreds of years from now in a post-Earth future, is earning rave reviews and even some Oscar buzz. It scored a huge opening weekend last week, looks to keep the momentum going into the holiday weekend.  Only one member of our staff (that I know) has gone to seen it yet- but brought back a good report.

Needless to say, what initially caught our attention was the plot:

“As the film tells it, humans abandoned Earth sometime around 2010 when the planet became uninhabitable due to mounds and mounds of waste from consumer goods purchased from the gigantic megastore BnL (which, wittily, stands for “Buy ’n Large”).”

Sound familiar? And it doesn’t stop there. Apparently BnL not only destroys the earth with garbage, but sponsors an exodus on the deathstar-like “Executive Starliners,” where humans are now forced to live. That’s...not being very subtle.

Of course, none of the overt criticism of its business model is preventing Wal-Mart from trying to cash in on the movie craze (HT - Jonathan Rees).

All Wal-Mart issues aside - you’ve got to appreciate director Andrew Stanton’s audacity. The main characters of the movie speak no English, and the first 45 minutes of the movie are completely nonverbal - and mainstream audiences are loving it. That doesn’t sound easy.

Sounds like a good time for the whole family. Happy Independence Day!

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Sinbad, the voice heard in this video, hosted Wal-Mart’s shareholders meeting and included in his introduction a tirade against Wal-Mart’s customers. The company has long been cited for poor customer service - a fact often blamed on the company’s shoddy treatment of store employees. Sinbad’s diatribe plays in to a corporate culture of self-congratulation and customer bashing, something which Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton sternly warned against. This video came out shortly after last year’s meeting; Wal-Mart did not comment.

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This video is part of a project launched by MTV with several celebrity spokespeople and bands, all working to raise awareness of human trafficking and worldwide labor abuses. The video, called “All I Need,” will make anyone think twice about the objects around us and the conditions they were made in.

Wal-Mart’s low prices are tempting. But the retailer depends on working conditions like this to remain profitable. By forcing suppliers to strip expenses to the bone, Wal-Mart enables an economy of sweatshop labor and human rights violations. 

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This clip, from the Canadian documentary Wal-Mart Nation, shows just how little consideration Wal-Mart gives its shareholder resolutions. The proponents of the resolutions all have a vested interest in raising the company’s stock price AND profits, yet Chairman of the Board Rob Walton seems uninterested in the proposals.

It’s in Wal-Mart’s own best interest to listen to these resolutions, yet the company fails to do so. What would YOU say to Wal-Mart’s executives? Click here to speak out. 

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CNBC on Wal-Mart’s Growth Strategy notes that Wal-Mart has had such a hard time expanding in to new communities, the company might be making changes to its expansion practices out of sheer necessity.

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Good news: Wal-Mart has finally returned control of Debbie Shank’s bank account to her family. At last, Debbie’s husband Jim can get back to paying Debbie’s medical bills and focus on providing some quality of life for her.

Jim Shank sat down to record this special thank you message to members of the Wal-Mart Watch community:

Like Jim, we’re so grateful for the help and support you’ve given to his family. Your dedication to this cause was critical in creating the tremendous public pressure which ultimately forced the company to do the right thing for Debbie Shank.

It’s also a reminder of just how important it is to keep the pressure on this company to make positive changes. We hope you’ll continue to support our efforts to hold Wal-Mart accountable. Click here to share this message with friends.